Families in Crisis: The Human Service Implications of Rural Opioid Misuse

This policy brief released by the National Advisory Committee on Rural Health (NACRHHS) discusses opioid use disorder in rural areas, which face great challenges given their limited health and social service infrastructure. Fatal opioid overdoses in rural areas have increased at unprecedented rates from 2012-2014 and now are as high as or higher than rates in all metro areas. The Committee issued several recommendations on how the Department can respond to this crisis.